The 33-year-old was in action at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough, at the weekend, and came away with three top 10 finishes, including a hard-fought podium place.

Racing brand new Kawasaki machinery, the Scot went well in qualifying at the 2.43-mile circuit. Some great lap times put Buckley fourth and sixth quickest on the ZX6 and ZX10 respectively.

First race of the day was the 600 National race, which saw a close-fought battle between Buckley, Steve Mercer and Adrian Archibald, with Buckley coming out on top with a well deserved third place.

Next up was the first leg of the Ian Watson Cup, but having struggled with set-up issues Buckley could only bring the OTSS Racing superbike home in ninth place.

The second 600 National race saw some great consistent racing and Buckley managed to pull a good gap from fifth place before securing another great finish, this time fourth behind Archibald.

The final race of the day again proved problematic with the ZX10 Superbike and forced Buckley to pull out.

Despite that disappointment, it was a great day’s racing which proved Buckley is once more a contender on the roads for 2010.

He said:

“I am very happy with the results of all my hard work over the winter months, which has seen me preparing all the brand new Kawasaki machinery I have for the season ahead. I have had very limited testing time as I have been flat out restructuring my entire team.”

“This has to be the only disappointing part as most of the other top riders have already had lots of testing and track time to get up to speed. It’s a testament to the Kawasaki machinery as I went to Oulton Park the week previous to put miles on the MSS-tuned engines and took just under 3 seconds off my fastest lap times.”

“Scarborough was good for me as I was mixing it up with the front runners in the 600 races, but just didn’t have the right set up for the Superbike. Our next race is a Scottish championship which will give me more track time and also better set up for the big bike."